Green Line LRT

[EOst]

I love the guy in the comment thread there saying we should have made it a monorail instead.

[nate]

Metro Transit and others probably know more than me, but from my experience, the secondary intersections are not the cause of the delays. Outside the first few weeks of operations, I'd say the train makes it through them upwards of 90% of the time.

The real cause is that there seems to be little to no signal priority at the major intersections. The train makes a green light at Lexington, Dale, Snelling, Rice, and Marion less than 25% of the time (my estimate, which might be generous)

The strib editorial gives the impression that all that the biggest obstacle to fixing the schedule is fixing the minor intersections. I do not think this is the case.

[mulad]

Yep, I generally agree with that assessment.

I wish I had a good simulator of the corridor with some knobs to fiddle with signal timing, plus good info on how they're currently set.

[EOst]

I don't know; Cromwell and Eustis stop trains a lot, for example (sometimes both, one after the other).

[mulad]

A fine example of something that should never happen -- those two signals should be linked in such a way as to prevent a train from stopping on the bridge -- the near-side signal should show the stop bar first. Some degree of signal priority should be there to extend "green" lights for the case when two trains pass each other. Why aren't the coupled to prevent it? Beats me.

[ProspectPete]

I heard on the radio today that St Paul was going study and give the train more priority at 3 of the secondary intersections. It said that they wanted to see how it would effect cross traffic and pedestrians. They didn't mention which intersections.

[Silophant]

Chatsworth, Victoria, and Grotto, according to the Strib editorial.

[RailBaronYarr]

I've been twitterizing this, but seriously, how can city folks say it's about the pedestrians/cyclists trying to cross University? Trains come by at most every 10 minutes in each direction, so 5 minute headways til you see a train. At most, a 3 car train (shy of 300 ft) should take 30 seconds of green light time on University to pass through the intersection. The remaining 4.5 minutes can be allocated to crossing traffic vs University Ave car traffic as necessary. The clear barrier to those trying to get across is the long signal timing catering to individual vehicle traffic, not a 20-30 second light rail train passing by every 5 minutes.

Plus, how many pedestrians are trying to cross the street to get to the LRT in the first place, in which speeding up the train via signal priority (or timing, I guess) would end up being net beneficial to their trip time?

[MinnMonkey]

Similar to the Strib article, but also comparing the Green Line to other urban LRT lines and a more detailed response from the City:

http://www.twincities.com/transportatio ... at-st-paul

http://www.mprnews.org/story/2014/08/21 ... ne-critics

[EOst]

I've been twitterizing this, but seriously, how can city folks say it's about the pedestrians/cyclists trying to cross University? Trains come by at most every 10 minutes in each direction, so 5 minute headways til you see a train.

It's not, it's a transparent pretext. The Strib editorial pretty much calls them out on it.

[Minneapolisite]

Excellent strib editorial, much unlike the comments. I do wonder how the trial prioritization of three intersections works out. Funny they only care now when it's to the advantage of motorists and never put in bike lanes on most streets crossing University. Same with their newfound concern for pedestrians.

[ECtransplant]

If St. Paul actually cared about pedestrians, there wouldn't be areas of the city that completely lack sidewalks.

[Minneapolisite]

That and they'd slow traffic on Snelling instead of making pedestrians wave flags at motorists. They must really think we're that dumb.

[Snelbian]

That and they'd slow traffic on Snelling instead of making pedestrians wave flags at motorists. They must really think we're that dumb.

Snelling is almost entirely run by MNDoT, not St. Paul. I know St. Paul is quaint and rural and mysterious to you since it's nowhere near whatever underground post-punk food trucks are popular these days on the other side of the river, but a little education goes a long way.

[ProspectPete]

http://www.twincities.com/transportatio ... at-st-paul

The front page article in yesterdays pioneer press did a good job comparing the green line with similar lines around the country. Hopefully this will be the first of many steps to giving more preemption to the train.
The light rail lines profiled in the article generally had almost full signal priority over auto traffic.
I've noticed the dramatic difference now between Lexington and Dale. The train just gets up to speed and stays there until it's stop at the platform. I have observed one several occasions this week how the moment the first LRT train makes it throught the intersection, the vertical bar starts flashing in an effort to expedite automobiles waiting at the lights.

[MNdible]

If you look at some of the numbers comparing the St. Paul and Phoenix systems, it should be clear that these are very different urban environments that we're talking about (in case that wasn't already immediately obvious).

[nate]

It doesn't seem like a coincidence that the three biggest news outlets in town ran these stories within a couple days of each other, each laying the blame at St Paul's feet. Thankfully the political pressure seems to be working.

[Nathan]

If you look at some of the numbers comparing the St. Paul and Phoenix systems, it should be clear that these are very different urban environments that we're talking about (in case that wasn't already immediately obvious).

Having gone to ASU and living in this area and having visited multiple times and used the LRT in PHX, I have to say they aren't really that different of areas. Maybe slightly denser population through st. paul, but the Phoenix metro is the LAND OF STOPLIGHTS and cars, AND the street it runs down is extremely busy, and ASU has a similar density to the U of M (in feel and traffic) It is SUPER reliable and surprisingly busy. I never thought I'd say anything good for PHX in terms of transit but that line is a slam dunk, and should have way more objections and problems with cars than the Green Line. Metro Transit and St Paul need to get their stuff together end of story.

*it always tells you how long until the next train, so nice.

[Scott Wood]

I've been twitterizing this, but seriously, how can city folks say it's about the pedestrians/cyclists trying to cross University? Trains come by at most every 10 minutes in each direction, so 5 minute headways til you see a train. At most, a 3 car train (shy of 300 ft) should take 30 seconds of green light time on University to pass through the intersection. The remaining 4.5 minutes can be allocated to crossing traffic vs University Ave car traffic as necessary. The clear barrier to those trying to get across is the long signal timing catering to individual vehicle traffic, not a 20-30 second light rail train passing by every 5 minutes.

Plus, how many pedestrians are trying to cross the street to get to the LRT in the first place, in which speeding up the train via signal priority (or timing, I guess) would end up being net beneficial to their trip time?

Perhaps what they're referring to is that you need to know pretty far in advance when you're going to give an early green, in order to avoid a shortening of the don't-walk countdown, which would be unsafe for pedestrians (especially if the countdown is visible and wrong) -- not that pedestrians might have to wait.

[twincitizen]

That issue has been brought up. University is so wide that the ADA required countdown crossing times have to be something like 60 seconds (or so I've heard, and don't dispute). If a pedestrian has requested a walk signal, you'd have to grant a green light on the cross street for at least that long. As we all know from other intersections around town, green lights on minor streets can be as short as 15-30 seconds - just long enough to let a few waiting vehicles get through. I don't think the pedestrian conflict is (complete) BS.

Are the ADA requirements too high? Perhaps. A full minute to cross the street is pretty damn slow. I'm not sure if there's a way to seek a variance from that or not. Median refuges are not possible at most non-station intersections due to the presence of train tracks (see Pascal, etc.)...the very intersections we are trying to give signal priority. Station/major intersections actually have built-in ped refuge areas if one is unable to cross...but many of those cross streets probably get 60-second greens anyways to clear waiting vehicles. Better synchronization should improve this, but I don't think you can ever completely avoid trains hitting a red light due to ped crossings. With trains approaching in both directions, it's gotta be pretty tough to sneak that full minute green for the cross street.

The core issue, I guess, is how long can you make a pedestrian wait for a signal? If we never, ever want trains to stop at red lights, I think it's likely that ped wait times could be 3-4 minutes (I'm thinking of a situation where one train is a minute+ away, and the other direction is coming a minute+ or so behind that one, plus left turn arrows for vehicles that restrict ped movements). I don't know what kind of requirements there are with regards to pedestrian delay once a crossing has been requested.